read time: 504 words, about three minutes

Oopps, Kraft Foods is being sued [1] AGAIN for a product label.
As reported in the [2] Palm Beach Post, Linda Rex of Boyton Beach, Florida has filed a “deceptive packaging” lawsuit in Palm Beach County Circuit Court.

The Kraft legal department and hurry up and re-label it department must be much too busy for any time off these days.

The product in question:
Capri Sun juice drink

The deception:
“All Natural”

Capri Sun in fact contains the way too prevalent ingredient HFCS – High Fructose Corn Syrup.
We’ll concede corn is “natural”, but as for this concoction… home chemistry buffs aren’t well equipped enough to produce it. It’s strictly an industrial product.
I’ve assigned it to the worst food products team.

HFCS is a sweetener. Much cheaper than cane or beet sugar. But, by golly, it’s not actually a food… it’s a concoction. Not recognized by the body as food.

So? Well here’s some so… when you eat calories from real foods, they tickle your satiety center and turn off hunger signals in your brain.
HFCS isn’t recognized as food. No effect on satiety. So you keep eating past “full”. Which of course is over eating. Which of course translates into weight gain… you’ve seen the movie, probably even had a starring role more than once.

[3] HFCS has become VERY prevalent in packaged foods since it hit the market in 1967, INCLUDING “low fat” foods. People tend to choose low fat foods for the single reason that they perceive they are consuming fewer calories.

***Once again, reading the label is wonderously illuminating***

side note: the word “natural” has no regulated definition. You’ve no doubt noticed how frequently the word graces the labels of food and cosmetic products. Terms such as “low fat” and “organic” do have regulated definitions. So don’t fall for the perception that natural on the label means healthy.

George Bray, professor of medicine at Louisiana State University is an authority on obesity. According to Bray, [4] consumption of HFCS increased more than 1000% between 1970 and 1990, mirroring the upward trend in obesity statistics.
Americans now consume 36 pounds of HFCS a year… 128,000 calories.

HFCS has been associated with liver toxicity, specifically – non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. It’s also believed to decrease the effectiveness of insulin… leading to overeating and diabetes.

Another issue with high fructose corn syrup - by continually upping the sweetness in products, your tastebuds become less sensitive to small amounts of sweetness. You come to “demand” more sweetness. Same with salt. Folks that eat heavily salted foods don’t detect mild saltings.

Marc Firestone, Kraft’s executive vice president for corporate and legal affairs, said well shucks, we’ve been reformulating that line and packaging for about a year. By golly, the new Capri Sun will be going into production in two weeks.

Firestone said:

“The new packaging … will say that Capri Sun contains ‘no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives’ …With this action, the phrase ‘All Natural’ is being removed from the package”

Hmmm, Kraft folded pretty quickly on this lawsuit. I guess the stars were (almost) aligned for them being just two weeks from label makeover.

You’ve seen it with trans-fats. I predict you’ll next see a big push against HFCS.